


If You Give What You Receive

by kayabiter



Series: Oak & Ash [3]
Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Gawain (Cursed) (Mentioned), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26221780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayabiter/pseuds/kayabiter
Summary: As the summer days come to an end, Lancelot keeps asking himself if he can be somebody the Fey can trust.It might take more than his Green Knight to answer.
Relationships: Gawain | The Green Knight & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Gawain | The Green Knight/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Kaze & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Merlin & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Nimue & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Pym & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed)
Series: Oak & Ash [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902007
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	1. Once Burned…

“You can stop lurking in the shadows, you know,” she calls out, not turning around.

Discovered, Lancelot straightens with whatever dignity one can find when caught… not exactly lurking, he insists resentfully in his head. More like – investigating. Emboldened by a more appropriate term, he pushes off the tree and makes his way across the clearing on silent feet. Nimue casts him a glance as he moves closer, but then her gaze returns to a mysterious object that seems to capture the witch’s attention completely. Lancelot follows her eyes avidly.

It is a nettle. Frowning slightly in confusion, he tilts his head, inspecting the plant. As nothing special seems to happen, the Ash-man sniffs the air furtively, his nostrils flaring. The faint scent of ozone and pine drifts around the Fey Queen, and there is earthy smell of the forest after the rain, but he does not pick out anything unusual.

It is just nettle, he thinks. A little bit wilted, at that.

Nimue sighs as if feeling the need to answer his perplexed look, even though he has not made a sound.

“I am trying to revive it,” she says softly, a hint of despair creeping into her voice. It is so out of character, that he startles slightly, throwing her a furtive glance. At first, she seems the same as always, but then his gaze catches on the uncertain curve of her lips. From there, it is as an unravelling thread. The telling signs rise to the surface, as shapes emerging from the darkness when your eyes adjust. The bruises on tender skin under her eyes, the careless way dark hair spills out of the tight braid, the thin scratches on her hands. He has never really allowed himself to scrutinize her like that, Lancelot realizes with a start, and hollow feeling coils painfully in his stomach.

“You healed me before, haven’t you?” he says, desperate to escape the feelings he is not quite sure he can handle yet. He is used to being vaguely terrified by the Fey Queen, but right now he can’t find it in himself to fear her. “A nettle is hardly a challenge then.”

“Ah,” Nimue says, a bashful look on her face. “Well, it’s not quite… that didn’t go according to the plan.”

“But my lung was punctured, and now it’s barely a scar,” he counters with a frown. “Unless it was not your intent?”

“Don’t be daft,” she huffs angrily. “If I wanted you dead, I would have done it myself, not waited serenely for some Paladin bastard to luck out. You are healed, and I do not regret that – until you say something like that again,” she raises her eyebrows pointedly, and Lancelot clenches his jaw. “It’s the way it happened that is all wrong. The roots just stemmed your blood flow and kept your lung from collapsing until Polly arrived”.

He has not known that, Lancelot thinks queasily, and has much preferred it this way. While the gut-churning nightmares of the vines crushing and tearing the flesh abated after some time, he still had more than enough of greenery claiming his body. The recent jagged scars on his back and arms, left by forget-me-nots, ache at the thought. It is one thing fighting something sentient, that can be cowed, that has eyes he can read to guess at the next strike; something that stays down when you plunge steel into it. Trees, on the other hand, you cannot threaten with a sinister look, cannot goad them into a wrong move.

“Well,” he clears his throat. “I am grateful nonetheless,” he pauses, another miraculous recovery crossing his mind. “And Gawain?”

Nimue is silent for a moment.

“Gawain,” she says slowly, “is something else entirely. If I could work wonders like that at my will, the Fey would have been invincible.”

The phantom dull ache of the lash wounds on the Ash-man’s back is an unpleasant reminder of why, exactly, they find themselves in need of revival spells. In a frantic attempt to distract himself, Lancelot crouches on the ground and touches the leaf. It slides between his fingers, barely a tingle to suggest there is poison inside. If it were an animal, he would just put it down, it looks so miserable.

Just as he thinks it, there is a gentle shift in the air, suggesting that Nimue went back to her exercise, the witch’s brow furrowed in concentration. There is a hint of green creeping along her cheeks, and curiosity wars with weariness inside him as he waits for the spell to work.

They both watch the nettle expectantly, and for an instant, it seems to uncurl the tiniest bit, but then the plant nods mournfully at a sudden gust of wind and slumps back down. Nimue hisses and stomps her foot dejectedly.

“I don’t know what is wrong with my intention. I should just stick to cutting people’s heads off.”

“Wait,” Lancelot interrupts her, and she falls silent, looking around in case there was a danger that the Ash-man might have sensed.

“Can you do it again?” Lancelot asks.

“What do you think I have been doing since sunrise?” Nimue asks bitterly. “It is pointless.”

“Just try one more time,” he insists gently.

Frowning, the witch creaks her neck and focuses on the plant again. The owl hoots loudly in the trees above their heads and the wind whispers in the leaves. To Nimue’s senses, everything is the same, but Lancelot can swear that…

“I can feel it,” he breathes out in disbelieving awe. “I can see the trace of your magic.”

“What? How… Have you always known how to do that?” she demands to know, and he recalls hunting her through the woods, wolf blood and ozone and despair. From the look on her face, he can tell she is thinking about the same.

“No,” Lancelot shakes his head. “No, I swear.”

“Are you sure, then?”

“Do it again,” he suggests, and this time she does so without objection.

It is a minute shift in the air, the flicker of blue and green along the edges of the nettle’s leaves, that promptly melts into nothing. Lancelot leans closer, eager to get a chance to untangle the riddle of Fey’s magic. If he just pulls a bit more on that glimmering thread in the air… It feels like sliding the key into the lock of the door behind which something magnificent is hidden, something so… incredible…

Bright white light erupts in front of his face, blinding him shortly, and he is thrown back, Nimue yelping somewhere at his side. Shaking his head to clear the black spots swimming before his eyes, Lancelot looks up to see that the nettle is ablaze with malachite-green fire. Astonished, he blinks a couple of times, before the reality catches up to him, and he notices that the fire is licking at the hem of Nimue’s skirt. Swearing, the Fey pushes himself off the ground and leaps over, stomping at the fabric. Broken out of her shock, the witch looks down and immediately tears the fabric straight off, tossing it at the nettle. Panting, they stare at the vivid green flames, swaying in the air around the nettle’s leaves. It does not spread, and Lancelot is sure the moist ground has little to do with it. This fire, he knows instinctively, does not adhere to the usual rules.

“How have you done that?” Nimue finally breaks the silence, and Lancelot gapes at her.

“Me? I am not a witch!”

“Well, I didn’t surrender _that_ to the Hidden!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You form an intention and surrender it to the Hidden. That is how it works. Since I am not the one with the knack for burning things down, and there is no one else…”

The Ash-man pales, and Nimue finally notices the marks on his face are glowing softly. She makes a mental note to ask about it later, but spares him a comment for now. Nothing is ever simple with this one, is it.

“Father…” she says and coughs, wrinkling her nose at the burning smell. “Merlin. We need to talk to Merlin. He would know what to do.”

“I’ll find him right away,” Lancelot bobs his head, not taking the eyes off the fire. “Just…” he inhales and braces himself, remembering Gawain’s insistent requests to speak up instead of forcing his way through and bottling up until he explodes. Which now, alarmingly, seems like more than a turn of speech. The man must know him better than even he himself does. “I would like to do it on my own. If you would allow that,” he bows his head slightly.

Nimue almost opens her mouth to object, but then something flickers in her eyes, and she nods. Perhaps, if he is not thrown headlong into dealing with spells, his magic will be less chaotic than hers. As Lancelot lingers, taking a moment to collect himself before seeking the wizard out, they watch the fire flare once, twice, and fall in on itself, leaving only a handful of ash behind.

Well, that is definitely one way to solve the problem, Nimue muses out loud with a soft giggle, and Lancelot can’t help an amused chuckle.


	2. Lifted Spirits

It’s barely dawn, the hesitant sunlight just catching the edge of twilight cloak thrown over the forest, and Lancelot can discern at least three types of alcohol wafting from the wizard.

They are sitting in the makeshift inn, which is, frankly, just a crudely woven roof over a relatively flat patch of grass between the trees, littered with logs fashioned into benches and tables. The Fey around cast sidelong glances at both of them. While his face betrays nothing, Lancelot’s entire body thrums with anxiety.

“They are still afraid of me,” he notices softly, not quite an invitation to dialogue, but as close as he can muster.

Merlin shoots him a look, and Lancelot shifts uncomfortably under the magician’s piercing eyes. Distracted on the tankard dangling from his fingers, he is caught off guard by the man’s next words.

“Despite what your fabled paramour might be saying, the Fey are not a forgiving sort.”

“Speaking from experience?” Lancelot arches one brow, vaguely disturbed by having Gawain described in such a blatant way. It is not as much lashing out, though, as it is the eagerness to get a reaction out of the only Fey who mostly remained indifferent to him so far.

The mage scoffs humourlessly, pushing on the tankard with a finger until it is trembling precariously on one side.

“Heard all about that, have you now, the Weeping Monk?” Merlin drawls out, a mocking tilt to his voice.

Touché, admits Lancelot but doesn’t say it out loud.

“I did not mean offence,” he says earnestly. “Forgive me.”

Time to regroup, retreating for a moment to the familiar safety of silence, his eyes flitting around as he wonders how he managed to ruin the conversation with a single phrase so thoroughly. Finally tearing his eyes away from a magpie fussing in between the branches of the roof, he looks back at the magician.

After drawing the silence out long enough, Merlin decides to take pity on him. If not for the young Fey’s sake, than for his own, lest the swirling memories get their cold bony fingers on his throat again. Bloodthirsty little things, always eager to suffocate, and not as easily scared away by liquor burn as he likes to pretend.

Merlin inclines his head slightly, wordlessly accepting the apology, and pushes the tankard towards Lancelot. Flickering a brief glance around, Lancelot can see the Fey watching them with poorly veiled attention. He is desperately out of his depth, again, but the sorcerer, for all the complicated relationship with the Feykind, is still one of the most respected figures among them. Especially now that his magic returned. Naturally, one might argue it is respect akin to that people express towards thunderstorms; a natural phenomenon so out of their control, there is little to do but wait until it passes. Nevertheless, Lancelot will take it. Leaning forwards, he wraps his fingers around the tankard.

“Hidden knows, I am not the one to judge,” he mutters, and knocks the tankard back, wincing at the burn sliding down his throat.

Merlin breaks into a crooked grin as if to say, “now we are talking”, and Lancelot fights the urge to mirror with a smirk of his own. Under the eyes of the wizard, no longer distant and instead glinting mischievously, the Fey outcast preens for the reasons that he struggles to explain even to himself.

“In my experience, Hidden knows little of moral dilemmas we, mere mortals, have to face,” Merlin remarks, and the irony of a seven-hundred-year-old wizard saying such things is not lost on Lancelot. The Ash-man eyes the man sceptically, as if it to point out the apparent disparity in their situation, to which the magician responds with a shrug.

“If the state of Nimue’s dress after the morning practice is anything to go by, we might have something far more interesting to discuss than our lamentable life choices,” Merlin observes mildly, and Lancelot feels like a mouse facing an incredibly smug cat. So the blasted wizard has known what he is here for from the very beginning and was just toying with him. At Lancelot’s tense look, the sly mage snickers and gets up, his determination briefly derailed by swaying to the side so hard he has to grip the edge of the table. Frowning slightly, he pauses to focus. A sharp scent of ozone hits Lancelot in a gust of wind, and when Merlin crosses their looks again, the sorcerer’s eyes are clear, severe blue.

“Come, boy. We mustn’t dawdle on such a brilliant day.”

“It’s raining again.”

“Hyperboles, Lancelot. Hyperboles and metaphors, the cornerstone of Hidden arts, which you would do well to remember. Now tell me. Have you had an opportunity to learn lingua latīna?”

“Vellem possem obliviscaris.”

As Lancelot follows the mage out, the Fey behind them exchange significant looks, and disperse, going back to their morning chores.


	3. Voices Old and New

It is a laundry day, and Pym is simultaneously wrung out and bored out of her mind. Since Polly returned, the redhead barely had time to sit down, running back and forth with one chore or another, darting in and out of the healer’s tent, juggling poultices, and jars, and herbs. A little entertainment would not go amiss, Pym muses, squinting at her next victim.

“So, I’ve heard you are a right fire-starter,” she drops airily, her hands submerged in river water, stained bandages floating and twisting through delicate fingers. The dried blood clings stubbornly to the linen, but Pym is nothing if not persistent, once she sets her mind to something. Perhaps Polly will finally allow her near nightshade, she daydreams with a rueful sigh.

“If you are waiting for me to laugh, you might want to get out of water lest you freeze,” Lancelot replies from where he sits, hunched over, finding refuge from the sun under the sprawling ivy branches. The last days were oddly warm, and the pale skin of the Ash-man’s face, usually concealed by the hood, has disagreed with the sun vehemently. He still has a hint of red on his cheeks that is no way adorable, no, good sir. Pym teased him for hours, just for the crime of making her think otherwise.

“Surely it is not my impeccable sense of humour that is the reason. You were always a bit slow on the uptake; Gawain can attest to that,” the young healer jibes, and immediately curses, having torn one of the linen ribbons. So much for that nightshade, she thinks mournfully, inspecting the frayed edges. Desperate to avoid the clutches of Paladins, the Fey never stayed in one place for long, and their supplies were diminished, every scrap of the fabric reused until it has completely worn out. Wringing the last bandage dry, the girl climbs out of the lake and plops on the grass next to Lancelot.

“Speaking about Gawain…”

“You still haven’t told him,” Pym nods.

 _“I_ haven’t told anyone,” he grouches.

“Yes, yes, yet Nimue rambles when she overindulges in elderberry tea, that I just so happened to brew a bit too much yesterday. So here I am, once again ready to guide you through the intricacies of verbal communication. Though letting people know you can burn things with your mind is, in truth, daunting. You do know he will adore you regardless, don’t you?”

“It’s just that,” Lancelot mutters, not baffled by her cheerful rambling as much as he used to be. “He might. But it’s not him I fear. I cannot get rid of the feeling that everything will change, and I will not be able to do well by him. There is still so much I do not understand about all of you. He mentions something from your stories, your history, and I just stand there, baffled.”

“It is your history, too,” Pym points out, and he moans softly, falling back to the ground and hiding his face in hands.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” he confesses in a muffled voice. “Merlin gave me some books, but…” he trails off, twisting grass stalks with one hand, the other still splayed across the forehead. “I just wish we had more time.”

It is more than he has ever willingly divulged to anyone regarding his concerns, and the man falls silent, having exhausted his words. Pym considers him, eyes narrowed pensively, and then hums and looks back to the river, absently brushing windswept ginger curls away. They sit in companionable silence for a while, and the sun is reaching its zenith when Lancelot hears her hum again. This time, it is a lilting melody. It grows louder, the wordless tune giving way to the sounds of Old Fey, proud and wistful, as they weave in between the calls of birds, the murmur of water and the rustle of the leaves. Her voice is sweet but untrained.

It still knocks the air out of Lancelot as he realizes he had heard that tune before, a gentle echo from the time he believed lost to the smoke forever.

“What is this song?” Lancelot forces out hoarsely as Pym’s voice dies down.

“A lullaby,” she answers simply. “My mother used to sing it to me,” she throws him a quick look. “I guess yours did, too.”

He swallows and nods, not trusting his voice. The song burns behind his ribs, unearthing memories he has not dared to face in a decade, but he sees it for the gift it is. Pym is quiet, seemingly engrossed in watching the sunlight glimmer on the water rushing past, but he is painfully aware of where her attention is truly focused. Something cruel between them is finally set to rest, buried in the ground, surrendered to the flow of water and time alike. He does not voice his gratitude to the young woman, failing to come up with the words that could possibly be enough. She does not expect him to, anyway. So many bridges he has burnt, but mayhap, he wishes fiercely, the two of them will cross this river yet.

Lancelot reaches out, brushing his fingers tentatively over the warm skin of the Fey’s hand, and Pym squeezes back, not saying a word.


	4. (Small Things)

\- No, Ash-man. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you are making rounds of the camp, weaselling your way into everyone’s affections. But I am not your friend, so make yourself useful somewhere else.   
\- So you admit I am useful? Why not hunt with me then?  
\- I can bring the deer back without you glaring it to death.  
\- Spar with me then.  
\- What’s in it for me?  
\- Fun. I see how bored you are with other warriors, don’t deny it. And if I win…  
\- Please. As if you could.  
\- Tomorrow, then?  
\- At that creek, the one to the north.  
\- Thank you, Kaze.  
\- Don’t mention it.  
\- ... that is not a polite expression, is it?  
\- No.


End file.
